Monday, April 25, 2016

Today is the day! I hope you are all as excited as I am to finally see the end of the I'm A Ninja series. It has been with me since 2008 and I'm more than ready to finally finish the series and have a trilogy to my name. It's been a long time coming, and a difficult process. I learned all the hardest lessons in publishing with Tosh and my ninjas, and it is personally rewarding to have gone forward with this series regardless of all the struggles. So let's get on with this cover reveal!!!

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Wheeee! I found this image in 2013, and I knew immediately that it would be the perfect cover for the last book. Tosh goes through some seriously rough times, and though he's fighting it feels impossible to make it through. I felt like this guy, with the red hoodie and sense of despair, really captured the dire situation of the third book.

AND DON'T THEY LOOK SO GREAT AS A SERIES?

Now, on to the copy. *WARNING* If you haven't read the first two books, this copy may contain some spoilers like information. Read at your own risk.

Tosh
and Amy may have managed to keep the demon Akuma in the kami realm,
but that hardly spells success. While the living realm is spared, Akuma
consumes all kami in his path. Even worse—he’s targeting Tosh
and Amy’s ancestors, consuming them and weakening the Inyo all
in one shot.

When Akuma’s Clan murders not just
ancestors but their living relatives, Tosh and Amy can’t
waste time mourning those they’ve lost. They must get stronger. They must
defeat Akuma before he siphons all their power and more people die.

Just as
they approach their peak strength, Akuma’s dark shaman deals a devastating blow.
Weakened and captured by the enemy, Tosh and Amy have run out of options. Unless
they can discover a new kind of strength, they must not only sever their
connection with each other but lose their souls, and every else’s, to Akuma.

BACK OFF, I'M A NINJA will be out August 30, 2016, but you can win it NOW along with the whole series by entering this giveaway! The first two novels will be sent to you as soon as I have a winner, while BACK OFF will come when I get my first batch of copies. The giveaway is open to the US, Canada, and the British Commonwealth. So get entering!

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

I'm currently writing the last in my Ninja series—BACK OFF, I'M A NINJA. And as I'm slogging through this book I can't help thinking it not like writing any of my other books. I'm only half way through and I've been writing since last October 2015 (I'm usually done with a draft by now!). The plot is crawling out of me in odd and ends, and I keep having to go back to add pieces I didn't know or skip forward to what I do know (I usually have a more linear approach!). It's a rare occasion where I've not met my own (or my publisher's) deadlines (Because of health reasons, but still!).

Basically, I've written over 20 novels at this point...and I'm still being surprised by my own "process."

I think a lot of authors, especially new ones, have this idea in their head that they have The One True Process that will work for them and their writing for their entire careers. I'm here to tell you to throw that idea out the window.

While we all have some consistency in the way we write, I can tell you without a doubt that the process for writing every single novel I've written has been different. Some have flowed out of me in a flurry of inspiration. Some have been worse than pulling teeth. Some have been organized with a clear plot path, others have been by the seat of my pants with heavy revisions. Some have been linear in writing, others have been very non-linear.

I tend to fight the process of a particular novel for a while. Like, I should have learned by now but I have to get to the point in every novel where I realize I need to embrace the particular process of THIS book instead of trying to force it to come out how I want it to.

Because when you just accept a novel's process, everything goes easier. When you just say, "Hey, the last book came out plot point by plot point, yeah, but this one isn't and that's okay!" ...That's when you're really going to start making progress. We can get so hung up on if we're writing the "right way" or not, but really I'm finding there isn't even a single right way for me personally to write, let alone any other writer's style. When drafting, whatever works is what works. And embracing the ugliness of that first draft and how to spews out is as important as accepting the revisions to come.

And revisions always have their own process, too. Some are smooth and light. Others are major overhauls. I've experienced everything in between those and then some. Facing a new form of revision, or unexpected amounts of revision, can be difficult as well. Whenever I get a revision letter from a crit partner or editor, my brain first wants to fight those points because changing them will be hard. But when I embrace the feedback and find the path to fix the issues, edits always turn out great.

So if you're struggling in either drafting or editing right now, I encourage you to find a way to embrace the process of your current project. Don't compare it to another project or wish it wasn't they way it is—just do the work that needs to be done in the way that you must. It'll turn out just fine, and you'll be a lot less stressed.

Natalie Whipple

I am an author and card-carrying nerd. My favorite areas of the nerd realm include anime, Korean dramas, good cheese, and playing mmorpgs with my family. I take pride in writing the weirdest books I can think of, and my novels TRANSPARENT and BLINDSIDED, HOUSE OF IVY & SORROW, and RELAX, I'M A NINJA are just some of my wacky ideas.